Glossary · entry 05 / 12
ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Act)
ICWA is a federal law that gives tribes a central role in child-welfare cases involving their members, including notice and the right to intervene as a party. Tribal courts apply it alongside your own code.
Passed in 1978, ICWA sets minimum federal standards for the removal and placement of Indian children, and it recognizes the tribe's own interest in the case: the tribe must be notified, can intervene as a party, and in many matters can take jurisdiction in its own court.
In practice ICWA work is deadline work. Notice must reach the right parties within strict windows, hearings follow statutory clocks, and placement preferences must be documented. A missed step can undo months of work in an appeal.
Software helps when it computes those deadlines from your own code, keeps a provable history of who was notified and when, and ties the case to the child's enrollment record.